“There is nothing like looking, if you want to find something (or so Thorin said to the young dwarves). You certainly usually find something, if you look, but it is not always quite the something you were after.”
– The Hobbit
9.8.18
It feels like an eternity since I have been home in Arkansas. Slowly everything I see reminds me of the place I love, and maybe it’s the Malarone or the lack of oxygen in the air when living at 9,000ft, but everything seems to take on the smell of gumbo when I think about it. I find it fascinating that – even when on an adventure – men dream more about coming home than about leaving. It’s probably because, we as humans, are hard wired to have our comfort zones. The Neverland we retreat to in our times of hardship, or the Sherwood Forest always calling us back.
All over America today people are dragging themselves to work, stuck in traffic jams, wreathed in exhaust smoke. But, what I see here is the realization of a dream 21 years in the making. I wish I knew what I know now then, back when It all started with that first camping trip I took in 2012, accompanied by my brother, his roommates, and a Wal-Mart rucksack. This is the bush of Ethiopia and it stretches as far as the eye can see. I’m far from my Sherwood Forest, and often I miss it desperately. Today, though, I wouldn’t mind staying here in Harbuchulule, Ethiopia forever. It’s hard to leave a place you really connect with. I tell myself I’ll be back, but I know there’s a good chance I never will.
When I left, all I wanted was to stop feeling like such a cupcake. I wanted a little bit of that swagger that comes with being able to gaze at a far horizon through eyes of chipped granite and say with a slow, manly sniff, “Yeah, I’ve shit in the woods.” Slowly I’ve come to relate heartily with Bilbo Baggins and “feel that there really is something of a bold adventurer about myself after all, though I would have felt a lot bolder still, if there had been more to eat.” Finally, I’ve come to understand 180° South when Jeff says, “The best journeys answer questions that in the beginning, you didn’t even think to ask.”
A wise man once told me, “You are expected to participate in this life. So don’t be afraid to ask question.” This trip has allowed the important questions I never thought about to come out. Questions like:
“What is my dream?”
“Why do men have nipples?”
“Do I really want to get married?”
“What did my dog name me?”
“When does my life really start?”
These questions created by this journey, molded by the hardships and cold showers, have ran in my mind like a soundtrack stuck on repeat. This trip hasn’t been easy. It’s not one of those things you have to do, like chatting with your mother’s friends in Whole Foods or feigning consideration of others when you really want that last slice of pizza. That’s good. When things arent easy, it makes you think. That’s when adventure starts. Still, the word adventure has gotten overused. For me, adventure is when everything goes wrong.
When hiking Volcana Acatanango, the guys and I all carried our packs. Weighed down with water, tents, sleeping pads, various unhealthy snacks, and useless equipment REI salesman so elequently made sound essential to our survival. Our ministry hosts, Manuel and Logan, set up the trip for $15, with their friend Jiame. Who, consequently, hiked up the mountain at a staggering pace all the while looking back to make sure no one had died yet. We experienced the whole of the Volcano, not just the rocks and the trees. The footpaths we followed spent a lot of time in the woods but also emerged at obliging intervalls to take us along sunny rock outcrops and volcano ash. We brought the food we ate ourselves, hot dogs wrapped in tortillas, half cooked chorizo, and off brand lucky charms for the morning after. It doesn’t seem like much, but you would be surprised at your satisfaction with little when you have hiked a lot. We had all taken a shit in the woods. We became, and forever would be, mountain men. It was wonderful, and it was wonderful because the whole charmingly diminutive package was seamlessly and effortlessly integrated.
Next to us hiked a group of Europeans, weighed down only by the hiking sticks – they used incorrectly – and the high fashion clothing they wore. Guided by some high spirited Guatemalan, who looked like he aspired to be in a Patogonia ad, the Europeans trecked and spouted off some unkind four letter words I was blessed to understand after four years of French classes. We both hiked the same Volcano. Though our hike and their’s could not have been more different. Their climb was the ultimate and opposite of ours, they were these high-powered CEOs and plastic surgeons, who paid $1,500 to Sherpas who put all the ladders in place, and carried all the gear on horses guided by nine-year-olds. Who got to a camp and didn’t even have to lay out their sleeping bag, it was already laid out, with a little cup of chocolate milk on the top. You see the whole point of doing something like this, is to attain some intangible physical or spiritual gain, but, much like working out, if you compromise the process, you end the same way you began.
Slowly, this journey will become a series of stories I tell. Entrenched within the confines of my experiences, and wrapped within the blanket of my thoughts. These past seven months have been made up of many vastly different stories. And, often, they’re chaotic. But, my experiences have taught me what no teacher taught. Through them I have learned how to navigate through the uncertainties and sail headfirst through this storm of a world with confidence.
P.S. I have noticed that my blogs have mainly been thoughts. This is the beginning of a few blogs talking about my experiences and just what we have done in these countries. Thank you to all who have made this trip possible and for your continued prayers. You really mean a lot.
